Click on the photo to view Steve Blake through the years, from his college days at Maryland to a game-winning shot for the Lakers. (Blake returns to a Feb. 3, 2007 game after receiving stitches.)

At Maryland, Steve Blake helped lead the Terrapins to the 2001 Final Four and 2002 NCAA Championship. He was the first ACC player to rack up 1,000 points, 800 assists, 400 rebounds and 200 steals over his career.

Blake was selected by the Washington Wizards with the 38th pick in the 2003 NBA Draft. He played two seasons there.

In September 2005, Blake accepted a contract from the Portland Trailblazers and, after Sebastian Telfair was injured, became a starter. He would spend only one season with the Blazers.

In July 2006, Blake was traded to the Milwaukee Bucks. He would play less than half a season there.

In January 2007, Blake was traded to the Denver Nuggets. He started the remainder of the season for the Nuggets, who lost in the first round of the playoffs to San Antonio.

In July 2007, Blake agreed to a three-year deal with Portland after he became an unrestricted free agent.

In February, Blake was traded to the Clippers with Travis Outlaw and $1.5 million in cash for Marcus Camby.

On July 8, Blake officially signed a four-year $16 million contract with the Lakers. In Tuesday's season opener against Houston (pictured), he hit the eventual game-winning 3-pointer.

A newer one became available to be won at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, and Steve Blake realized it sooner than anyone.

After all, Blake was the best player in a Lakers uniform not to receive one of those hot gems David Stern had just handed out. With so much ado about Ron Artest giving his ring away so that he doesn’t feel like he has one, bear in mind that Blake doesn’t have one.

And that burns a guy who has had national championships from high school and college in his vault for the past eight years – and never even won an NBA playoff series.

It didn’t stop Blake from congratulating position partner Derek Fisher one extra time during post-ring-ceremony warmups Tuesday night. Fisher, with full understanding, stopped what he was doing and made direct eye contact.

He leaned toward Blake, and their shared moment made clear a new time was at hand – a time to move forward and go get next year’s model.

Blake got right on that.

The ring ceremony had been wonderful, no doubt. Ring ceremonies are fundamentally celebrations of the past, and the highlight of this one was rooted in all the past shared by boyhood chums Lamar Odom and Artest.

Odom’s words in introducing first-time champ Artest – “We come from the same family tree in New York City basketball, and I just want him to know that his family is proud of him” – were the sort of sweet love about which the soulful Odom grew up hearing Anita Baker sing.

As the Lakers first organized that unconventional ceremony, Phil Jackson said he wanted to start it by introducing his “son” Luke Walton – and even better that big Bill Walton was actually courtside for Jackson’s crack. It went without saying that the player procession had to end with Kobe Bryant, and there was likewise no doubt it’d be Fisher introducing Bryant given their years of friendship and co-captain status.

Why wasn’t there some sentiment from Bryant and Fisher to rival or exceed something from Artest and Odom? Bryant and Fisher have done this kind of thing together four times before, remember, so it’s hardly ground-breaking. Perhaps the most eloquent player in the NBA, Fisher opted in his speech for sarcasm that diminished Bryant’s accomplishments, the sort of thing only your big brother would say about you.

In truth, we know from Fisher that sticking with Bryant was the primary reason he re-signed with the Lakers. We also know from Bryant that the two spoke daily during Fisher’s free-agent limbo, a sharp contrast to the first contact Blake got from Bryant after committing to the Lakers as a free agent.

That’s not to downplay the impact of Bryant’s quick text, which Blake has mentioned often as a significant gesture of welcoming. It’s just another context for this opening night that was all set up to be latest page in the Bryant-Fisher family photo album.

Then there was Blake, hijacking the moment, in Fisher’s place to make the winning shot off Bryant’s pass.

These are the sorts of moments the regular season is all about: guys connecting and succeeding so that they have the belief to deliver when the playoffs come calling – and we really start hearing the ringtones. And for as often as Bryant and Fisher have worked together, the news on a night meant to celebrate the past became Bryant and Blake’s first dance.

“That was big of him to trust someone new on the court,” Blake said.

Bryant had made a point to tell Blake to “be ready” coming out of the previous timeout, because the opportunity would be there with the way Houston was collapsing on Bryant and Pau Gasol as they ran the middle pick-and-roll.

That, however, was not the basis for the trust. That was established over the past seven years of Bryant watching Blake’s feisty efforts on other teams, really respecting those occasions when the shorter, slighter Blake dared to defend Bryant with individual gusto.

“He’s not scared of anything,” Bryant said late Tuesday night, long after all his teammates had gone home.

That’s what is at the heart of Bryant’s bond with Fisher, who stood up to Bryant in fierce 1-on-1 games from the start when they were both Lakers rookies in 1996. That similar confidence is why Bryant says Fisher is as clutch as he is.

Blake hasn’t done what Fisher has, but he has dared to do some things before, too.

“Watching Steve Blake hit that 3 last night,” wrote University of Maryland coach Gary Williams via Twitter on Wednesday, “reminded me of the 3 he hit vs. uconn to send us to the Final Four.”

Aaron Brooks has never been easy for Fisher to guard. Fisher shot 1 for 7 before sitting out the final 15-plus minutes, but as the triangle offense’s timing improves, so will Fisher because he thrives on that rhythm. When Jordan Farmar has been rolling in the past, Jackson has sometimes stuck with him over Fisher down the stretch also.

Yet there’s no doubting that Blake’s instinctive ability to make a great pass before anyone else can see it coming is something that has been lacking on this team of many, many good passers – but no great one. Blake was just as clean as Fisher – neither had a turnover – on opening night. Blake is the superior athlete and defender.

Fisher, 36, is hardly ready to surrender his place on the team: “Pick a number as far as which guys are going to step up and make plays,” Fisher said of the role players this season.

Blake, 30, isn’t actively hunting it.

About his debut, Blake said: “I just want to try to build on it.”

Still, as Blake left the building Tuesday night, everyone crossing his path had something to say about him now having become a real Laker.

Had he? Well, Blake wasn’t bringing home one of those beautiful jewelry boxes and the prize inside, so … not really.

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